


Saving Molly

by mssarahx



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-01-27 19:21:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1719749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mssarahx/pseuds/mssarahx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moriarty's return meant Sherlock had to call in extra help. To Save the one women who counted. He just didn't mean to break her heart in the process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Meeting Penelope

The dress was beautiful. Mrs Holmes had stated so through strained sobs, making the blushing bride feel truly special. 

It was a shame that the groom was late. 

“Any word?” she turned to Mary, who checked her watch again before looking at her phone screen. 

“Nothing” Mary grimaced, knowing that this was unforgivable. 

“Who the hell takes a case on the morning of their wedding?” She caught her skirt in her hands and starts towards the door. 

Sherlock was more than forty five minutes late to his own wedding. 

She ripped the wooden door open, marching through towards the yard where the guests where assembled. 

“Penny!” She turned her head towards the man calling her name. The crowd turned towards the caller as penny turned her furious glare onto her fiancé. 

“Sherlock Holmes! This is completely unacceptable!” Before Penny could open her mouth, Sherlock’s mother was walking – storming – towards her son, fury in her eyes. 

Sherlock side stepped his mother, his eyes fixed on his angry wife to be. 

“Penny, it was an eight. An eight Penny, the husbands sister killed her, it was beautiful, truly remarkable –“ His words were cut short as Penny’s hand made contact with his cheek. 

“You promised me. You promised me Sherlock!” The barely contained venom in her voice was rapidly becoming more obvious. “No cases. I asked you for one thing, no cases on our Wedding day!” 

He opened his mouth, trying to find the words that would calm her. 

“NO! you can’t talk your way out of this, I spent enough time waiting for you.” She pulled the veil from her head, shaking out her hair, “you warned me, right at the beginning, that you were married to your work, I just wanted to believe that you could find time for me. For someone to love you. But you were right.” She pulled off her engagement ring and placed it in front of him, his hand stretched out in front of him, as if he was trying to grasp at her. Silently he took the ring. 

“I won’t be a bigamist Sherlock, but I know you won’t choose me. It was always the thrill of the chase for you and I can’t give you that. Not anymore”   
Before he could reply, she pushed past him, past Mary, John and Mr and Mrs Holmes. Running towards the car parked at the front of the yard, she pulled her skirts into the car, yelling at the driver to take her home, trying to not to look behind her. 

****  
Sherlock raced up the stairs towards 221B, with Mary and John quick on his heels. The door slammed open, to reveal Penny sat on his chair, changed into a strappy tank top and cut off shorts with her previously perfect curls scrunched up into a messy bun atop her head. She placed her book down on the armchair, smiling as Sherlock stopped in the doorway, the Watson’s peeking out behind him. 

“That was perfect!” he couldn’t contain the grin that took over his face. “Penelope, it could not have gone better. The press got the whole thing, there’s already six different online news networks running with the story. Oh, this is brilliant!” he walked over to Penelope, who was smiling bemusedly at Sherlock’s reaction to the news. He placed a brief kiss on her forehead, oblivious to the confused glares being pointed towards his back. 

“Perfect?” John questioned, ignoring Mary’s calming hand on his arm. “You just called off your wedding in front of all your family, in front of the national news crews!” He took a breath and shook his head. “Sherlock, I need to know what is going on. Right. Now” 

Sherlock glanced towards Penelope, who sighed as she realised this would be her story to tell. 

She stood from her seat and put her hands in front of her back, squaring her shoulders. John shifted, subconsciously mirroring the military stance. 

“My name is Penelope Marcus, I am an intelligence officer with MI6 and Sherlock’s oldest friend.” 

Mary’s head whipped round to look at the both of them, her mind starting to put things together. 

“Moriarty” She breathed, turning her gaze to Sherlock. 

“Yes” Penelope continued, “six months ago Sherlock came to me and asked for my help. Moriarty had returned, back from the dead and we needed to find a way to protect the people he would go after.” She turned and started pacing, a trait she picked up from continued exposure to the Holmes boys. “Sherlock knew that Moriarty would make good on his promise and had to do something to stop him. That’s where I come into it.”   
Sherlock turns and takes over his vacant chair, fingers tented beneath his chin. 

“Moriarty promised to burn the heart out of Sherlock. To destroy the one thing that he couldn’t help but love. He tried to destroy him using you, Lestrade, Mrs Hudson, but Sherlock bested him. Because Moriarty didn’t see the one thing that mattered the most. And that is how he survived.” She turned her face towards Sherlock, asking for permission almost, to continue. 

“We knew that Moriarty, or whoever was behind his return, would want to destroy his heart, which is why we needed to make them believe that I was the one to do that. To break his heart. To make him vulnerable. We had to lure them into our world, to make them believe that he was vulnerable.”

“Why?” 

“What?” Penelope was prepared for a number of questions, but a simple ‘why’ was not one of them. 

“Why did you need to do all of this? To lie, to pretend that you were in love, to lie to us about it?” Johns words were no longer directed at Penelope, instead pointing towards Sherlock’s stoic figure. “Why did you have to lie to me? Again?” 

“To save her” Sherlock’s simple reply paused them all in their tracks, following his gaze to behind them towards the doorway.

Molly stood there, still in her wedding clothes, wondering what she had walked in on.


	2. Meeting Penny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock asks Penny for a favour.

SIX MONTHS PREVIOUSLY

The front door shook with ferocity as Sherlock unleashed a torrent of bangs against its front. He relented when he saw a shadow from behind the frosted glass window move to undo the latch. Before the door could open he heard the tell tale click of a gun being cocked; he smirked, she should know better than that, he thought.  
The door opened a few inches and a small heart shaped face peered through the gap, the innocent look masking the deadly weapon hidden behind it. She sighed when she saw him, as if to say ‘it’s just you’. She retreated into the flat without a word, leaving the door agape, as much as an invitation as he was going to get.  
When he reached the living room he took a seat on the love seat opposite where she was sprawled on the sofa.

“If you’re here about the thing in Bahrain, you’ll have to wait. My hangovers still raging and I don’t have the energy to duke it out.” She bluntly stated.

“I have no interest in how many bodies you left back there, Penny. I am here about Moriarty” The hand she was massaging her forehead with suddenly stopped, her bleary eyes widening.

“Moriarty?”

“Yes. He’s back. Or at least someone who knew him is doing a great deal to convince us that he is”  
She sat up slowly, caressing the gun still held in her hand, as if it would provide her comfort. Within a split second her façade changed and her face became stony. Sherlock braced himself for the battle.

“And why does that concern me? I finished with that bastard years ago.” She grimaced.  
Sherlock, for once, picked his next words very carefully. He needed her to go along with his plan if he was going to save the people he loved. He knew she could sympathise with that feeling, or at least remember what that felt like.

“I need your help to divert attention. Whoever this is, they want to hurt me. They want to burn me, hurt my Pa-“ he paused, he could not give too much away this soon, “hurt my friends.”  
She turned to look at him, tilting her head to the side, to study him almost. A smile began to spread across her face, not a kind smile, but the kind that would strike fear into even Mycroft, a sort of psychotic leer.

“You’re in looove” Her voice tinkled out, like wind chimes, but with a hint of deadly intent. She peered at him for a few more moments, staring into his eyes; Sherlock would almost feel uncomfortable if he were not used to her intimidation. “Well, well, well” she started, pausing for effect, “I cant say I’m surprised. Don’t feel too put out, it happens to the best of us, we can’t stay lonely psychopaths forever, we are human unfortunately.” As she spoke, she pulled a bottle from underneath the sofa, taking a large swig, before offering the bottle to Sherlock. He shook his head, to which she shrugged and downed the remaining drops.

“Love does not factor into this. This is a game to them and I intend to treat it like one. I do not like to lose.” He could not let her know what was really his motivation behind this, that would be giving away too much. “I took out their star player and now they want to return the favour. However they know death does not frighten me. So they will target someone close to me. I need to make them think that person is you. I need them to think you a worthwhile target, recognisable as an ally, but not enough to be transparent in our intent.”

“You want me to be the decoy, so your boyfriend is happy and safe? Or is it girlfriend? I could never keep up with that at uni.” The leer was back, this time more to wind him up.

“Yes. I want you to be decoy. You can look the part of vulnerable, without actually being so. I know you can be trusted to take care of anyone who attempts to harm you and cover your tracks well enough.” He avoided answering her second comments, needing to keep on point as much as possible.

“Ok.”

His head shot up, looking at her as she stood leaning against the sofa arm. He expected more of a fight.

“You’ll do it?”

“Yes. On one condition.”

Of course. He knew there could be a catch.

“Which is?”

“I don’t want to know the plan.”

This shocked him. She always needed to know, always had to be one step ahead.

“And why is that”

She looked at him like he was stupid, tutting as she stared at his bewildered face.

“Because, shithead, they’re going to try to use me. They will want to know the plan. They will try to get the details by going through me. BUT” she paused, plonking down on the sofa again, “if I do not know the plan, if I just accept everything that happens from now as my new normal, then I cannot give anything away.”

“You have never given anything away before.” This was true, in all of the years he had known her, she had never given anything up to anyone, every single things she said and did was precisely thought out and risk assessed.

“That’s because I had something to lose back then, it was my ass on the line. I had things that I cared about, things that I couldn’t risk. But this? This is a favour for you. This does not affect me, doesn’t put me at too much risk, and it sure as hell can’t hurt my loved ones. “ then end came out like a bitter spit, and Sherlock was reminded of the days when she would have been happy to say those words. Now it is the worst phrase she could utter.

“Ok then. No unnecessary information. The first step is easy.” He stood and walked towards to open curtains, pulling them shut, but making sure that the lone camera man outside, got a shot of him doing so.

“Oh yeah, is it sleeping? Because I’m completely ok with that.” She slouched back, as if she was just reminded of her crippling headache.

“Actually, yes. I will need to spend the day and evening here, leaving around eight pm, in a dishevelled state, preferably with some signs of physical interaction having occurred.” The way she spoke made it sound so clinical, she could not help but let out a cackling laugh at his words.

“So you want to hang out, then leave with just been fucked hair and maybe a hickey?”

“Basically, yes.”

“Why?”

“Because we need to have proof that we have actually been together before I announce our engagement to the others.” He paused to allow her process his words, anticipating her reaction.  
She shot up, all things forgotten and screeched,

“Our fucking what?!”


	3. John

John Watson was not a strict man; in fact he was quite lenient with his rules, due to a best friend whom refused to follow them all together. However if there was one thing he could not abide by, it was bad time keeping.

When Sherlock had text him with a case that he ensured John was ‘at least an eight’ John marched himself down dutifully to Baker street.

If he were perfectly honest with himself he was quite relieved that Sherlock had found himself a case. The last 72 hours since the reappearance of Moriarty, Sherlock had hidden himself away, responding only to one out of a maybe a hundred messages that John had sent him.

When John reached the flat however, he seemed to find it vacant. Nothing seemed to have been moved since john was last there, after Sherlock’s arrest. One thing he did notice was the presence of what seemed to be a pair of women’s shoes by the door to the upstairs flat. John brushed it of and settled himself in his chair, awaiting the detective’s arrival.

Much to his chagrin, twenty minutes passed before he was pulled from his thoughts. His head spun as the door to Sherlock’s bedroom creaked open and the detective emerged, pulling on his blazer.

John shook his head, “bloody wanker” he murmured under his breath. Of course the detective caught it and simply smiled.

“My apologies John, time seemed to get away from me.”

“Hmm” John knew that there was no use in arguing the toss with him, “what’s the case? Is it Moriarty? What do you know?”

Before Sherlock could answer, his bedroom door creaked open once again, this time a tall strikingly beautiful blonde walked out, adjusted her tight t shirt. John watched wordlessly as she made her way into the kitchen, casually moving a jar of petrified pigs feet out of the way, in order to boil the kettle.

John was silent, watching the woman and then turning to Sherlock, who was looking a case folder, like nothing was out of the ordinary at all.

John couldn’t stay quiet any longer.

“You bloody wanker! You absolute tosspot !” he screeched at the other man, “After everything with that bloody Janine , you go and do this again! Have you learnt nothing at all!”

During his outburst, both Sherlock and the woman had stopped to stare at him, before looking at each other and back to him, looking slightly confused and bemused.

“John –“Sherlock started.

“NO! No, I will not allow you to treat another woman like that. It’s not right Sherlock, you’re messing with people’s emotions.” He turned to the woman and smiled pitifully, “Love, whatever he’s told you I’m sure was very convincing, but trust me, he’s only after one thing from you and it’s not what you expect. Quite the opposite actually. Save yourself the heartbreak and just leave him, I know it’s hard to hear, but he’s just using you.”

The woman and Sherlock shared another look before collapsing into giggles. The woman clutched her sides as she made her way into the living room to seat herself next to where Sherlock stood.

Once their laughter had subsided, Sherlock perched next to the woman on the sofa and looked at John sympathetically.

“John, this is not like Janine. This is my old friend Penelope. We lived across from each other when we were children. She recently moved back to London after working abroad and I offered for her to stay here with me.”

“He say’s offered” the woman – Penelope – chimed in, “More like I turned up at his door and told him that I was staying and if he didn’t like it, he could go do one.”

Instead of looking annoyed at her correction, Sherlock looked down at her fondly. John was bewildered; he had never seen Sherlock look at someone like that.

“But – But- She, erm, she” John stuttered, not quite sure how to broach the next topic.

“She what?” Sherlock enquired.

“She came out of your bedroom. The same one you were in. Were you- I mean,”

“You mean what John?”

He swallowed, “were you in there together? All night?”

Again they looked at each other and smiled, like they were passing a secret between themselves using just their eyes.

“Yes John. We were. In fact that’s why I asked you over. There is no case, but there is something I need discuss with you, that is most certainly an eight.”

John swallowed again, his throat dry, “go on.”

“Penelope and I have reconnected over the last few days. She is aware of the Moriarty situation-“

“How could I not be? That show off was all over every screen in the country” Penelope interrupted. Again, Sherlock didn’t seem to be phased by this.

“She is aware and regardless of this and the danger it may pose, we have chosen to pursue a relationship.”

John’s mouth was agape. This could not be true. This was a wind up, a tactic, part of a plan or scheme. It had to be. Sherlock did not do relationships.

“John” Penelope’s voice awoke John from his thoughts, “I know that this seems strange. I mean it’s Sherlock we’re talking about” She lovingly patted his arm during this “and I know it may seem like it’s part of a plan or plot, but I promise you it isn’t. I’ve known Sherlock my entire live; you can even ask Mycroft if you wish, I would not allow him to do this if I didn’t think he was being sincere. I know that it’s a big change and I know you have trust issues with Sherlock in these matters, so please, take my word, this is genuine. This is real and it is happening and we would love you’re support.”

John stared into her eyes and could not help but instantly feel at ease, she seemed the exact opposite to Sherlock, but something about her screamed, a quiet storm behind her irises that did not distress John as much as it should.

Wordlessly he stood and walked from the flat, descending the stairs quickly. He needed to leave, needed to tell Mary what he had been told. He needed someone else to tell him how ridiculous this all was.

Sherlock Holmes did not do relationships and yet he stood in his flat with a long lost childhood sweetheart. The thought jumped around his brain, bouncing on the inside of his skull like a bullet. Something was not right, yet there was nagging feeling in the back of his mind that kept whispering. Maybe Sherlock had had an epiphany; maybe his near exile had made him appreciate what he was missing. John did not know, what he did know though was that in 72 hours his best friend had changed, and he did not like it.


	4. He missed it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'll Be honest, this is just a little sample i did to see if i could still do this story. I started it over a year (or two) ago when the muse was my best friend. Then, of course, life got in the way.   
> SO i'm just testing it out at the minute. No promises.

Moriarty knew that he had missed something. He could sense it on that roof. Sherlock had a plan, he just knew it, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. He had placed snipers on all of the people that he cared about, confident that Sherlock couldn't fool him this time, but there was something behind his eyes, daring Jim to call his bluff.

Dying had never bothered Jim, it was just another adventure. Another way of outdoing his enemies, by doing to himself the one thing that they wished they could do to him was the ultimate reward. The icing on the cake was that he was able to take that smug detective with him this time. Without Jim to give the order, the only thing for Sherlock to do was jump.

_But it was too easy._

Sherlock should have put up more of a fight, should have tried to out do him.

_Sherlock should have done better._

_He expected better._

He tried to put the pieces into place. And it was when the gun entered Jim's mouth that he realised.

Sherlock had a way out. Someone Moriarty had missed that wasn't on the business end of a snipers rifle at this moment. 

Jim wanted to laugh out loud.  _Oh well, no going back now._

_BANG_

In his last fleeting moments Jim felt a small sense of relief. Sherlock would forever be his biggest challenge, and being dead would not stop him playing the game. 

Jim knew what he missed on that roof.

But it would take Seb a bit longer to figure it out. 

But when he did, it was obvious. 

The game was back on. 


End file.
